Watch out: The AI bulls are running again

Comments Print Arts & Entertainment The HAL 9000 computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Artificial intelligence has always worked better in science fiction than in real life. Technology moves blindingly fast — except when it doesn’t. Take artificial intelligence. This spring, IBM opened a new center in Cambridge for its “cognitive intelligence” software, also known as Watson. Five years after winning $1 million on the game show “Jeopardy,” Watson is ready to analyze vast quantities of data and spit out deep insights. All that intelligence, according to an IBM release from September, represents nothing less than “a new era in computing.” Thirty years earlier, IBM was setting up another office a few blocks away to focus on the then-trendy realm of artificial intelligence. In the summer of 1986, IBM executive…